Time: July 21, 1429
Location: The Hill of Saint-Thierry, outside Reims (La Hire's Camp)
The wind shifting from the north carried the smell before the camp even came into view. It was a dense, biological wall of roasting meat, unwashed bodies, cheap wine, and horse manure.
Charles VII pulled his scented handkerchief from his sleeve, covering his nose. Beside him, Joan of Arc rode with her visor up, her eyes scanning the chaotic sprawl ahead not with disgust, but with a strange, maternal recognition. Behind them rode Magnus the Scot and Lucas le Breton.
They crested the ridge and looked down.
If the Royal Camp was a grid, and Flavy's camp on the distant peak was a fortress of silence, then La Hire's camp was a riot frozen in time.
There were no straight lines. Tents were pitched wherever a man fell off his horse. Silk tapestries looted from Burgundian manors were draped over bushes to dry. A pig was being roasted on a spit made from a lance.
"It is not a camp," Charles murmured. "It is a riot waiting for a spark."
"It is a pack, Sire," Magnus corrected, his eyes scanning the perimeter. "Wolves do not dig latrines."
As they rode deeper into the press, Charles noticed a peculiar sound. It was not the clatter of armor, but a high-pitched, metallic jingling.
He looked at the waist of a scarred Gascon mercenary who was sharpening a dagger. Hanging from the man's belt was a heavy iron ring holding a dozen keys.
Cellar keys. Barn keys. Chest keys. House keys.
Charles looked around. Every veteran wore them. They were the trophies of a hundred looted villages from Orléans to Reims. They were the symbols of private power—the power to open what belongs to others. A man who holds a key does not ask permission.
Charles glanced at Magnus. The Scotsman wore only one key on his belt—the heavy iron key to the King's Granary.
One key to rule the harvest, Charles thought. Versus a thousand keys that open nothing but ruin.
A horn blew—a rough, cracked sound.
From the center of the chaos, a giant of a man emerged. La Hire.
He was not wearing courtly velvet. He wore a stained gambeson and plate armor that looked like it had been hammered back into shape by a blind blacksmith. He wiped grease from his mouth with the back of his hand and ran toward them, kicking a sleeping soldier out of his way.
"Saint-Thierry!" La Hire roared, his voice like grinding gravel. "The King! The Maid!"
He reached the horses. He did not bow like a courtier; he dropped to one knee with the heavy thud of a falling oak.
"My King," La Hire rumbled, bowing his head to Charles.
Then, he stood up. He turned to Joan.
He did not kneel. He reached out with two rough, calloused fingers—fingers that had strangled Englishmen—and gently touched the hem of her white banner. He brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them.
It was a gesture of such raw, uncharacteristically tender devotion that the camp fell silent.
"The wolves are grinding their teeth, Pucelle," La Hire grinned, revealing a gap in his teeth. "Point us at a throat. Any throat."
Charles cleared his throat. The moment of chivalry ended. The business of state began.
"We are not here for throats today, La Hire," Charles said coolly. "We are here for names."
La Hire's grin faded. He scratched his beard.
"Ah. The roster. Duke Alençon asked for it last night."
"And you gave him a scrap of paper that said 'Two Thousand Five Hundred Devils'," Charles said. "No names. No ranks. No equipment count."
"Paper fights no battles, Sire," La Hire shrugged, spreading his hands. "My boys… they don't read. They don't stand shoulder to shoulder without stabbing each other. They fight. And if I make them answer drums and files, they'll be gone by sunset."
Joan looked down at the mercenaries gathering around them. They were dirty, scarred, and fierce. They looked at her like starving men look at bread.
"Étienne," Joan said, using La Hire's given name. Her voice cut through the camp noise, clear and sad. "We have walked a long road. But look at them."
She pointed to a pile of loot—silver candlesticks and sacks of grain—stacked near a tent.
"You stole that from a village this morning."
"The boys were hungry, Pucelle," La Hire defended weakly. "An army must eat."
"The King's wagons are on the road," Joan said, pointing down the valley to where Jacques Cœur's convoy was moving. "There is bread now. Real bread. Not stolen crusts."
She leaned down from her horse.
"If you eat the King's bread and still steal from the poor, Étienne... you are not soldiers. You are thieves. And God does not bless thieves."
La Hire looked at the ground. He could argue with a King, but he could not argue with the Saint.
"They are wild, Pucelle," he muttered. "They plunder because it is the only pay they trust."
"Then we change the trust," Charles interrupted.
He rode his horse forward, addressing the gathered captains.
"I do not ask you to march like ducks," Charles announced. "Keep your structure. You are designated as Free Company. You answer to La Hire."
A ripple of relief went through the ranks.
"But," Charles raised a finger. "The looting ends today. You will be paid full wages. You will be fed from the Royal Granary."
"In exchange, all loot is cataloged and handed over to the Provost."
The men grumbled. No loot?
"However," Charles added, playing his card. "Ransoms remain yours. But they will be recorded—every prisoner, every sum—so the Crown knows what it has bought with its bread. If you capture a knight, his price belongs to you."
He paused, his eyes sharp.
"Unless he is a Prince of the Blood. Then the Crown buys him from you. Fair?"
The grumbling stopped. Ransom was the jackpot. Looting chickens was for survival; ransom was for retirement.
La Hire looked at Charles with new respect. The King understood the mercenary soul.
"Done," La Hire said. "I will break the legs of the next man who steals a chicken."
"There is a price for this freedom, La Hire," Charles said. The trap was set. "I am granting you the status of Free Company. Now, I demand the tithe."
"A tithe?" La Hire frowned. "I have no gold, Sire."
"Not gold," Lucas le Breton spoke up, opening his ledger. "Flesh."
"The King requires eight hundred light cavalry. The best riders. The fastest horses."
La Hire bristled. "You want to split my pack? To put them under some court dandy?"
"No," Lucas said smoothly. "They are for the Maid."
La Hire paused.
"Three hundred will be designated as 'Couriers & Escorts'. Their holy duty is to guard the supply lines that feed the Maid's army. They will ride with the grain."
"Five hundred will be the 'Road Screen'. They will ride ahead of the Saint's banner, hunting English scouts."
La Hire's chest puffed out. Guarding Joan's food? Clearing Joan's path?
"Well," he grunted. "If it is for the Pucelle... I suppose I can spare eight hundred saddles. I will tell them to saddle up."
"Good," Charles said. " Not eight hundred bodies. Eight hundred riders. The best. The ones you would keep for yourself. But there is an administrative detail."
Charles pointed a gloved hand toward the distant hill—the orderly, silent camp of Guillaume de Flavy.
"These eight hundred men will not be on your books, La Hire. They will be transferred to the muster roll of Captain Flavy."
La Hire looked like he had been slapped. "Flavy? That cold fish? He counts oats one by one!"
"Exactly," Charles said. "Flavy knows how to manage a payroll. Your men will fight for the Maid, they will be directed by Magnus... but they will be paid and supplied by Flavy."
Charles leaned in, his eyes hard.
"I will not have a second independent army roaming my rear, La Hire. You keep the wolves. Flavy keeps the books."
La Hire opened his mouth to argue, saw the steel in Charles's eyes, and closed it. He looked at Joan. She nodded.
"Fine," La Hire spat. "Flavy pays them. But they take orders from the Scotsman."
Charles gathered his reins. The sun was setting.
"One last thing," Charles said. "The list."
"I told you, Sire," La Hire groaned. "We don't do lists."
"You do now," Charles said.
"Eight hundred names. Assigned to Flavy's ledger. By sunrise."
"I want the man's name, his horse's color, and his weapon type."
La Hire looked at Magnus. The Scot was staring at him, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his sword.
"By sunrise, La Hire," Magnus said softly. "One list. If a name is missing, or a horse is missing... you will come to the prévôt's court and explain it to the gallows."
Charles signaled the turn.
"And La Hire?" Charles called back over his shoulder. "Clean up this camp. It smells like a latrine. Do not let the Saint sleep in a sty."
The Royal party rode away, back toward the order of the valley.
La Hire stood alone in the mud, surrounded by the jingling of stolen keys and the smell of roast pork. He held the invisible weight of the new order on his shoulders.
He looked at his men—filthy, rich with loot, and utterly disorganized.
"What are you staring at, you bastards?" La Hire suddenly roared, kicking a crate of stolen wine.
"You heard the King! And the Saint!"
He pointed to a group of lieutenants.
"You! Get a shovel! Bury that shit! All of it!"
"You! Find me a priest who can write! I need to make a list of eight hundred names before the sun comes up or the Scotsman will hang me!"
"And you!" He pointed to the man with the keys.
"Stop that jingling! It gives me a headache!"
La Hire strode over, grabbed the ring of stolen keys, and ripped it from the man's belt.
The iron bit into his palm. He tossed it into the mud like a dead thing.
"Those keys don't feed you anymore," he snarled. "Bread does. Iron does. And names do."
As the camp exploded into a panic of cleaning and counting, Magnus looked back from the ridge.
Lucas le Breton was already writing in his saddle-ledger, the ink jumping with every step of the horse.
He wrote the number—800—and the line beneath it trembled, as if the page itself understood what had been taken."
"The wolf is leashed, Sire," Magnus said.
"Not leashed," Charles corrected, watching the smoke rising from the camp.
On the distant ridge, Flavy's trumpets sounded—a single, disciplined note that cut through the twilight.
"Just... pointed in the right direction."